Performance artist Zachery Oberzan adapted David Morell's novel First Blood on a budget of 96 dollars. Location: his small New York apartment. The cast: Oberzan himself. Crude editing and cheap video effects do the rest.
That it even works is due to Oberzan's dedication to the story and his conviction in telling it. After ten minutes you're sucked into Oberzan's fantasy world, in which a bath tub is a river (never mind the shampoo bottle), a few twigs are a forest and a fridge and a closet are a Vietnamese POW camp. Oberzan never tries to hide the fact that we're inside his apartment, and still we go along for the ride. (And what a ride it is!) In this sense, FLOODING WITH LOVE FOR THE KID says more about our willingness to suspend disbelief than all of Spielberg's and Lucas's movies combined.
Oberzan plays all the roles himself. And although that makes for some funny moments, his two main characters, John J. Rambo, a.k.a. The Kid, and sheriff Will Teasle, are played from the heart.
FLOODING WITH LOVE FOR THE KID is not a sweded version of FIRST BLOOD. It is a minimalistic (and more faithful) adaptation of Morell's novel, made with very little irony and a lot of creativity, love, enthusiasm and effectiveness.
